We all know YouTube is the place to get your early 90s music videos…
But there’s also the opportunity to use the site for your business functions. Here are ten ways to use the new Google toy for marketing functions.1) Put your thirty-second spots there. I know a lot of forward-thinking, new media experts recoil at re-purposing content made for another screen, but that’s kind of bogus. For instance, I’ve been wanting to do a post on what I consider to be HP’s great advertising campaign featuring Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams, and Mark Cuban, but have held off due to the inability to easily show one of the ads here.2) Upload internal communications videos. Whether they realized it or not (and whether it was work pissing off Ricky Gervais), that Microsoft The Office video was a great way to show Microsoft’s humorous side. The best “internal communications” is, actually, external. Now I would strongly caution a Fortune 500 company from make public its “Napoleon Dynamite at the office” spoof because a) litigation and b) it’s not funny. But creative companies and shops can show video evidence of their laudable culture.
3) Product service videos. If you make bikes, why not have your experts assemble every bicycle in an easy-to-follow fashion? Upload it to YouTube, make it PSP, video iPod, and Zune accessible. If people are like me (and they may not be), they likely hate talking to customer service people as much as those reps hate talking to customers. Why not use talking pictures to automate troubleshooting?
4) Cheap b-roll. Now, I have no idea the standards and practices of the Podtech’s of the world, but I’m willing to bet their are online news and information video sites out there who will use YouTube video interviews of your CEO like a TV news broadcast would use b-roll. Even if it’s there are not a slew of options in that right, you can always depend on your YouTube-using stakeholders to get around to viewing the clips.
5) Rebut traditional media reports. Chances are if you’re actually in the traditional media, there’s a stakeholder or 70 that maintains a blog where they discuss your company. Start your own dialogue off the back of a negative press report with a video explaining your take on a particular matter.
Got more? Comments, please.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Lisa // Feb 27, 2007 at
Very interesting ideas here–thanks for sharing!
2 Katherine // Apr 2, 2007 at
Nice article. I am particularly interested in your “video evidence” of “laudable culture” comment. At Worrell, we’re launching a DVD campaign that showcases our “stories” as opposed to a drab list of our deliverables, etc.
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